Then there were two. On Tuesday night inside the giant shiny-plated Armadillo that is the Juventus Stadium, as the lights dazzled and thrillingly loud American brat-rock split a hole in the sky, 10,000 Italians held up 10,000 plastic cards to spell the word “Cardiff” in vast shimmery letters. This is, in all likelihood, the first time this has ever happened, and probably the last too.
A day later in Madrid as thunderstorms cleared the streets after midnight people in the city centre bars could be heard yelling and chanting and, in one side street off the Calle de Toledo, singing with a thick, beery Spanish inflection about Cardiff.
And so on to Cardiff it is then. Another high-grade, pizzazz-ridden, gas-wangling Champions League campaign has boiled down to its final pairing. No real surprises here. The team that always reaches the final will play the team that sometimes reaches the final.
Joe Theismann Womens Jersey Although, looking at Real Madrid and in particular Juventus one thing does stand out. These are the most seasoned, weathered and manly of Champions League finalists: balding, grizzled and masters of a more stately game compared to the wild collisions of the Premier League.
The big question in Cardiff is can the 32-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo find space between Leonardo Bonucci (30), Giorgio Chiellini (32) and Andrea Barzagli (36) to put one past the 39-year-old Gianluigi Buffon,
http://www.footballredskinsprostore.com/Sonny_Jurgensen_Jersey_Cheap who made his debut for Italy when Tony Adams and Gazza were still trying to win the World Cup and who still has something unbound and compelling about him, glowering on his goal-line like a wild-eyed evangelical priest in foam gloves and lime green nylon jumper.
It was wonderful to watch that Juventus defence in Turin, men for whom to defend is a kind of muscular physical art, strung together across the pitch like a Renaissance frieze of a particularly heroic battlefield massacre. Chiellini in particular,
Adam Lind Authentic Jersey with his noble, beaky profile, resembles a huge, sad medieval ivory chess piece come to life and crammed into a black and white striped shirt. They really are going to look good holding up that trophy three weeks from now.
Which is what plenty of people seem to think will happen in Cardiff. The theory, wishful thinking or not, is that Juventus will get a grip of Madrid, reining in the fancy boys, placing a pair of fleshy hands on the lapels of that precision attack.
It is an exciting idea that overlooks one thing. Atlético Madrid tried the same tactics and indeed succeeded for 20 minutes on Wednesday night.
http://www.officialnationalstore.com/Adam_Eaton_Jersey That they didn’t succeed in squeezing Real into submission was down to the efforts, above all, of another 30-something, a slight, ferrety, gliding presence who is surely, and without undue fanfare, the best all-round midfielder in the world these days. All hail, once again, the wonderful Luka Modric.
